Delegates will hear presentations from the most influential people in the Irish and international bioenergy sectors. There will be multiple engagement opportunities with speakers, the IrBEA CEO and President, along with the government, industry and solution supplier representatives.

Bioenergy is the largest source of renewable energy today, providing heat and electricity, as well as transport fuels. The use of biomass power has continued to grow in recent years and can play a key role in decarbonising our economy. Biomass for heat has grown more slowly and with limited policy support but with the planned Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) launch this will start to change.

The National Mitigation Plan suggests bioenergy will be the dominant energy source by 2050. However, policy uncertainties – mostly related to the debate on appropriate sustainability criteria under RED II – plus other structural challenges have the potential to constrain the expansion of bioenergy, not just in Ireland but at EU level too. Therefore, it is imperative to successfully set out a roadmap as to how Ireland will meet its 2050 energy transition objectives.

‘Looking to the future, more needs to be done to bolster bioenergy, which has considerable potential to help drive the energy transition. IrBEA is leading this energy transition through the government and at European Commission level to contribute to policy development and regulatory details to develop sustainable bioenergy markets,’ Des O’Toole, IrBEA President.

Bioenergy Future Ireland will attract senior-level executives and decision-makers from the Irish Bioenergy community and will create an environment in which to network, do business and access frontier knowledge on the latest developments, trends, strategies and policies relating to energy consumption in Ireland.

With over 200 members, IrBEA is the national association representing the bioenergy industry on the island of Ireland. The main objectives of the association are to influence policy makers, to promote the development of bioenergy and to promote the interests of its members. Improving public awareness, networking and information sharing and liaising with similar interest groups are other key areas of work in promoting biomass as an environmental, economic and socially-sustainable energy resource.

The Irish Bioenergy Association has updated the Bioenergy Installations Map Ireland 2017 this year. The new edition was published to coincide with Bioenergy 2017– IRBEA National Bioenergy Conference which was held at Castleknock Hotel and Country Club, Co. Dublin in February. This map is published every second year, it shows type of installation by symbol followed by generating capacity and operator. We try and show all installations that are built, under construction, or planned/grid connection offer. View map here

IrBEA is a partner of the European project RE-DIRECT (Regional Development and Integration of unused biomass wastes as Resources for Circular products and economic Transformation) In January 2017 the kick-off meeting for this project took place in Bonn. The newsletter link below is an important document, it will update you on the meetings and visits to date and it also goes into some details about the goals of the project. RE-DIRECT will make use of the proven technology named “Integrated Generation of Solid Fuel and Biogas from Biomass (IFBB)”, explained in the diagram below, to convert 20,000t of unused biomass in a circular economy approach into region-specific carbon products. We have quite a few members interested in this this area and we advise you take a look at this newsletter. Newsletter REDIRECT 1

We would like to warmly welcome Des O’Toole (Coillte – Business Development Manager) as the new President of IrBEA, Des has worked with IrBEA for many years on the committee, he has provided invaluable support and has helped grow the organisation. We look forward to him leading IrBEA into the next period where we hope to see bioenergy sector develop. We would also like to congratulate Paddy Phelan(Manager of Carlow and Kilkenny Energy Agency) for taking up the role of Vice President, we are extremely lucky to have these two experienced experts working on the IrBEA board.

http://www.irbea.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Des.png232373demoirbea2015/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/irbea1-300x119.pngdemoirbea20152017-04-29 13:48:402017-06-01 12:07:32IrBEA elects new President

The Irish Bioenergy Association (IrBEA) is pleased to inform you that Bioenergy 2018 will take place on Wednesday 7th February 2018 please save this date in your diary. It’s an important year for the renewable energy industry in Ireland. The Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment recently launched the final consultation on a Renewable Heat Incentive for Ireland this year to incentivise industrial and commercial heat users to switch to greener technologies we hope that in 2018 Ireland bioenergy sector will benefit from these incentives.

The event is the premier bioenergy event in Ireland and is an ideal opportunity to network with the industry. Typically the event is attended by project developers, financers, industrial and commercial consumers,
consultants, service providers, engineering and construction companies, and many other stakeholders in the industry. Organisations interested in sponsoring elements of the conference (whole or parts of) are asked to contact Teresa O’Brien contact@irbea.ie We will release details of speakers and other information in the coming weeks.

We would like to take this opportunity to welcome all new members to IrBEA in 2017 (companies listed below). As an association supporting the development and deployment of sustainable bioenergy, we look forward to collaborating with all IrBEA members to help drive the growth of the bioenergy industry in Ireland.

Please find the link here to the response to the Public Consultation on the design and implementation of a renewable heat incentive in Ireland on behalf of the Irish Bioenergy Association (IrBEA). These detailed responses are based on the responses co-ordinated by the IrBEA RHI Working Group on behalf of it’s members and those who responded accordingly to each of the questions raised concerning the design options for the RHI.

As an association supporting the development and deployment of sustainable bioenergy, we look forward to seeing the outcomes of the this consultation process and are hopeful that we will see a well-designed RHI scheme in place for 2017 that will drive growth and stimulate the bioenergy industry in Ireland towards 2020 and beyond.

Dr Ger Devlin has been appointed to the position of Chief Executive Officer with IrBEA. He will take up this new role on March 6th this year. Ger holds a PhD in Biosystems Engineering from UCD and a PDip in Advanced Management Performance from UCD Michael Smurfit Business School. He has successfully co-ordinated and managed both publicly and privately funded research projects in the areas sustainable biomass supply chains, advanced biofuels and renewable technologies. He is also Ireland’s Team Leader for the IEA International Energy Agency’s Task 43 – Biomass Feedstocks for Energy Markets. Coupling his career with a lot of commercial activities he has held Director positions of three clean-tech companies and he is looking forward to leading IrBEA and its members for a sustainable future in bioenergy and to strategically position bioenergy to play a key role in Ireland’s Sustainable BioEnergy Roadmap between now and 2035 and beyond.

190 strong attendance at IrBEA’s 16th National Bioenergy Conference on Thursday 9th February

Bioenergy conference calls for new stimulus to encourage new investment in the Bioenergy sector

Fergal Leamy, CEO describes Coillte as on a path to becoming the best forestry and land solutions company in Europe

Matthew Clancy, SEAI sees major opportunities and challenges for Ireland in achieving a low carbon economy

Professor David Connolly from Aalborg University, says “We need all the bioenergy available to make the transition to a fossil fuel-free future. District Heating will be a key factor in this transition.”

Representative from the legal sector, Garrett Monaghan (Arthur Cox) and Russell Smyth (KPMG) stressed the importance of planning, having experts on hand, and using funders as allies to help you get the job done.

Padraic O’Neill (IrBEA) in the welcome speech spoke of Bioenergy having enormous potential to provide energy savings and greenhouse gas emissions reductions in Ireland, but investor confidence is critical to shift investments towards renewable technologies. A renewable heat policy and support scheme should aim to accelerate market growth by removing the economic barriers currently preventing major capital projects from proceeding.

The programme featured four sessions, the first session focused on policy, Fergus Leamy, CEO of Coillte, the leading forestry, land owning, renewable energy and panel products business in Ireland, provided high-level insights on how we in Ireland can optimize our bioenergy potential. Matthew Clancy, Programme Manager for Low-Carbon Technologies at the SEAI talked about the detailed outlook and challenges for bioenergy in Ireland.

The timing of this conference was particularly appropriate in light of the final consultation on the Government’s proposed introduction of a renewable heat incentive (RHI). This very welcome development can be the key to unlocking the potential of bioenergy in Ireland. Getting to our renewable energy and climate change targets, generating energy from indigenous resources, reducing our dependence on imported fossil fuels, and promoting jobs and economic activity across the entire country, are just some of the benefits.

The Irish Bioenergy Association will be working hard over the next 4 weeks to make a comprehensive and effective submission to this consultation. Reflecting the importance of this challenge we had a session on the RHI consultation delivered by Tom Bruton in the mid morning sessions. After lunch, Session 3 concentrated on Project Finance. Garrett Monaghan of Arthur Cox covered the area of executing and financing biomass projects. He confirmed that capital is available for biomass projects but stressed the importance of planning, having experts on hand, and using funders as allies to help you get the job done. Garrett also looked at RHI implementation and addressed some of the current issues. Russell Smyth (KPMG) walked us through many projects scenarios which are up and running in the AD and W-E sector; commenting that there was a robust equity investment appetite for the sector.

We also had Franceso Panzeri (Demetra) who ran through the history of engineering and designing the ADBag. The solution is a modular system based on a prefabricated plastic bag, which is easy to be installed and maintained. Frank Donnelly of Northway Mushrooms detailed hands-on experiences of his farming business and how his dependence on different renewable energy supplies including biomass boilers and large solar panel investment has helped keep his business viable in changing economic times.